Image pickup device, its control method, and camera

摘要

An image pickup device, wherein a part of the carriers overflowing from the photoelectric conversion unit for a period of photoelectrically generating and accumulating the carriers may be flowed into the floating diffusion region, and a pixel signal generating unit generating a pixel signal according to the carriers stored in the photoelectric conversion unit and the carriers having overflowed into the floating diffusion region, is provided. The expansion of a dynamic range and the improvement of an image quality can be provided by controlling a ratio of the carriers flowing into the floating diffusion region to the carriers overflowing from such a photoelectric conversion unit at high accuracy.

主权项

1. A method of driving an image pickup device that includes a photoelectric conversion unit for generating carriers by photoelectric conversion and accumulating the carriers, a floating diffusion region, a transfer transistor for transferring the carriers from the photoelectric conversion unit to the floating diffusion region, a reset transistor for resetting the floating diffusion region, and a signal holding unit, the method comprising:
supplying a third gate voltage to a gate of the transfer transistor, the third gate voltage being between a first gate voltage that turns on the transfer transistor and a second gate voltage that turns off the transfer transistor; holding a signal based on the carriers transferred during the supplying at the signal holding unit; and resetting the floating diffusion region having the carriers transferred during the supplying, wherein the holding is performed between the supplying and the resetting.